Hi all,

My 20GB hard disk (Maxtor) just gave up on me yesterday and I'm forced to get a new one (duh).

Can someone be kind enuf to advise me on what hard disk to get? I'm leaning towards the 40-60Gigers..

TIA.

I wouldn't really recommend IBM, they've had too many failures in the past couple of years. Maxtor is pretty good allthough not the fastest but they have a very good return policy. To me the best would be Western Digital but they are not the cheapest. Seagate is pretty good to but they seem to focuss on the high end SCSI drives these days.

I've been using all Maxtors recently since IBM's fall from grace....

On average I'd say a 40GB 7200rpm model would be best.

IBM's failure rate is the same statistiscally as all modern 7200rpm HD's; which generate alot of heat.

Which is a good argument for good cooling and / or a nice roomy, well ventilated case.

Why?

XP just seems to do something a bit like that from time to time. Its the crap shell I think.

Well, all I use is Maxtor, they are the only ones that I have never had a problem with. I have a 6.4GB Maxtor that is over five years old in a system I built out of spare parts for my son to play old games.

Maxtor seem VERY fast returning disk RMA. I think my last lot came back in like 7 days.

What I do.... And don't tell anyone hehehehe.... Is use my Maxtor HDD for a few months, then swap data around using drive image, then send the oldest disk back to Maxtor with RMA, claiming that its defective when in fact its fine.

This way, I get my HDDs checked out by the manufacturer every few months or so. Heheheh.

I like to replace things before they break down....



1)Athlon C 1.33 GHz
2)400 W Macron AMD Approved PSU
3)IWILL KA-266R Motherboard
4)512 MB PC2100 DDR-SDRAM
5)4 x MAXTOR 40 GB HDD
6)1 x IBM Deskstar IDE 76 GB Hard Drive 75GXP 7200 RPM
7)1 x PIONEER SCSI DVD-DRIVE
8)1 x PLEXTOR SCSI 12/10/32 CD-RW DRIVE
9)1 x PLEXTOR UltraPLEX SCSI 40 MAX CD-ROM DRIVE
10)Geforce 2 ULTRA DDR-SDRAM 64 MB Graphics card
11)Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus Mpeg-2 Decoder Board
12)SoundBlaster Platinum 5.1 sound card
13)SMC Network Card (connects to 512kbps Cable Modem connection)
14)3Com Network Card (machine acts as NAT server)
14)Adaptec AHA-2940 SCSI Controller
15)Sound card connected to yamaha AV RX-V396RDS hi-fi amplifier, 5 speakers...
16)IIyama 22' Visionmaster Pro 510 AG201 Monitor
17)Remote keyboard, mouse, etc... Headphones, mic, blah blah...

Installed operating systems:

1)Windows 98 SE
2)Windows .Net Enterprise Server
3)Windows XP Professional
4)Redhat Linux 7.3
5)Mandrake Linux 8.2




Anyways, Maxtor seem to never have had a problem with this.

I was also using IBM in this process as well, but they were not as co-operative at this...

I am gonna loose that Deskstar at some point soon.

I think I'll try RMA-ing the hard drive since it's not that old. Somehow I do not have any luck with new hard drives. They always die on me. Even this 20Giger is a replacement for a 5GB that died last time {g} Could the lack of power cause the hard disks to die so often?

Anyway, what does everyone think about Seagate harddrives? Especially the Barracuda series.

I haven't used Seagate HDDs recently but in the past they have proven to be very reliable. I still have a 1.7GB Seagate HDD installed in a few machines that still work.:grinthumb

I'm pretty sure that at this performance level, all company are worth one another ( at least performance wise ). What you need to really consider is price & RMA politic.

Are you guys kidding? The MFG making the most noise and doing to best work (to my standards) is Western Digital. if you are going to spend a good about of money and need huge space look at the 1000 bb sepcial edition its fast and it large and dosen't have a grand fail rate. As for maxtor they are slow and their rma policy use to be misleading (repair or replace) I have a 17 gig which was a rma return that died 2 weeks after getting it and they would try swapping the platter just replaceing the drive. This is the case with all MFGs I know but at least they just say replace. Give WD a try I find the much faster than any maxtor I have and they have good working time and reputation.

Also if you are just stuck on maxtor try to get any maxtor dirve that is a dirve type made from quamtum

I don't want to turn this in to a HDD brand debate but I have owned two WD drives, one died a few days after I installed it, the replacement drive died literally the day after the warranty ran out and the other drive, bought a couple of years later, died after three months. I have had the occasional problem from other manufacturers but the only one I have never had a problem with is Maxtor. I own 11 Maxtor drives of varying size and age and they all still run like the day I purchased them.

About the WD dieing on you I'd say this, WD has cleaned up their rep and their drive use to die alot (older smaller drive for me) but in the past 3 years I'd used em with no sweat. Also things to note if dirves die alot around you.

Static shock (an oldie but it will kill anything)
Bad PSU
Bad grounding of other connections (some cable runs used in cable modems are just not grounded - mine isn't !
Shock

As a Technician, I'm familiar with those and have been for over ten years, aside from the cable modems, as the few I have encountered have been, but you get my drift. The problem wasn't ignorance, it was low quality.